Venezuela Launches The First National Cryptocurrency, The Petro (PTR)

This is quite exciting news for everyone that is interested in cryptocurrency and can be a start for things to come, although it might be just a first attempt that will fail. Venezuela just launched the pre-sale phase of the very first oil-backed, national cryptocurrency, called Petro (PTR). Right now there are 82.4 million PTR available. You can buy them with the main cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies.

The government in Venezuela is basically faced with a really bad economic situation in the country. As a result, it tries to attract investors from countries like Norway, Denmark and Poland, all while trying to deal with sanctions by the EU and the US.

What is interesting is that 100 million Petros were ordered. The value of one is the same as one oil barrel. All this comes in an attempt by the president and the government to raise $6 billion through PTR selling. This is actually more than ALL the ICOs launched in 2017 so you can imagine what incredible goal that is.

If you are interested to trading and buying Petro, you go and get a Petro Wallet, which was manufactured by the government. The rest is similar to all other cryptocurrencies in how it works.

The reason behind the launch of the PTR might be its biggest downfall. The Bolivar (Venezuela’s national currency) lost 96% of its value and inflation went up 4,115%. As you can imagine, the entire economy collapsed. With such desperation behind the launch of a cryptocurrency there won’t be many serious investors interested, even if we are faced with the first crypto that is officially backed by a government.

Some years in the future we might be faced with every country having its own cryptocurrency and fiat currency might be changed with digital currency. If this happens, history will show that the Petro was the first real attempt. I doubt it will work but a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, right?